


this will be

by Leielina



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Coda, Episode: s10e14 The Executioner's Song, Implied Castiel/Dean Winchester, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-05
Updated: 2015-03-05
Packaged: 2018-03-16 12:33:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3488420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leielina/pseuds/Leielina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He would laugh more and smile, maybe even every day. He would feel warm (his hands wouldn’t tremble). He wouldn’t dream.</p>
<p>It’s not like that at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	this will be

There’s a violent tremble all over him; on his fingers, his shaking hands, his clattering teeth and his clenching heart, yet – he cannot really feel any of it, not his quivering feet nor his hands that can only hold the blade to let it go.

He lets it go.

As he all but collapses into Sam’s worrying arms, he can only think — it’s over.

Dean lets them drag him out of the building, to the car and finally into the car. He sits there patiently while Sam buckles his seatbelt, resting his clammy forehead to the familiar car window, watches as his brother climbs to the driver’s seat and waits. 

He doesn’t know what he expected. Castiel slips quietly in the front seat, merely glances at him and says nothing.

Okay, then.

—

He wakes up when the car comes to a halt, to see Sam watching him extremely intensely in the rearview mirror. He has a slight, worried frown upon his face but it pointedly smoothes out as he sees Dean is awake. He clambers out of the car, Cas stretches his back straight as Sam opens the backdoor. Dean rubs his eyes and follows suit, doesn’t know what else to do these days. He stays quiet, too. Sam and Castiel both look like they want to say something. No one says anything. ( _So it goes._ )

Cas disappears again while Sam makes him a sandwich. It looks good and the look on his brother’s face is so sad and happy at the same time that he doesn’t have choice but to pretend to be hungry, even when the taste on his tongue is ash and sulfur and he doesn’t feel like keeping anything down. He _knows_ he’s hungry alright. He knows that he needs something in his system and that he loves food, _dammit_. Still he ends up blinking back tears when Sam doesn’t look and finishing the sandwich with a practiced gusto. Does what he’s good at and goes to bed. It’s okay, he thinks. ( _It’s over._ )

—

When he opens his eyes, it’s dark and gray, his bed warm and his feet cold. He shivers and tucks them closer to the rest of the mass that is his uncooperative body and wills the sleep to come again. He feels tired to his bones, regardless of the ten hours of sleep or so. His head is heavy and neck stiff, he feels leaden and weary in ways that don’t count in everyday life. 

He sighs in lieu of yawning and blinks his eyes open again, slowly and carefully. They feel dry and itchy. Maybe he’s been crying, he dares to think. (To hope.) Maybe there is still something within him. Maybe this isn’t it all —

He closes his eyes again.

—

In his dreams the sky is red, even when the scene is black and white and there’s no colors to exist. Yet he knows the shade of blood in his hands and on his face, he knows from the irony smell and the tacky feeling that cover his senses and make him want to scream and laugh and smile. He hates that smile on his face when he tastes blood.

The thing with dreams is that even if you know it’s dream, there’s nowhere to go. You just gotta hang on, in the middle of the anxiety and fear and the pressure of it all, the constant weight of the tidal wave of his mind. Just hang on, another second. A minute. A year. (The story of his life, so far. So it goes.)

He wakes up gasping and his breath labored, his hand shake and he’s pretty sure his heart isn’t going to stay in his chest any longer. Just a dream, sure. It’s okay.

—

_(At the end of the day, he doesn’t have anywhere to run either. That’s the story of his life, if any. He’s as tired as he’s in the mornings and in the dead of the night, he’s starved of some things good and beautiful he doesn’t really get these days. It’s tiring; the never-ending fear and the final resignation that this is his life. So far and so on. The lack of smiles and hugs and private things, because yeah, he doesn’t get those either, these days. This is the story of his life.)_

—

There’s this idea he gets sometimes, after a good night’s restless sleep full of depressing thoughts and stilling fatigue. He lays there, in the dark, thinks that maybe if he packs his bags and fills the tank and drives away, there will be peace for him, somewhere. He burrows deeper under the sheets and dares to wish: maybe there’s still something for me.

Then it’s daylight and cold, but the reality never crashes down on him — just covers him like another blanket and stays there, firm and promising: There is nothing. ( _This is it._ )

—

Even with his brother and his best friend, his small but almost happy family, he feels so alone nowadays. It’s not like they don’t talk to him, laugh with him or eat dinner and watch tv: they do, some nights and many mornings. It’s the way in-betweens, the way they sneak up together and give him sideway glances and the way they speak of him likes he doesn’t even exist anymore. When they try to make plans and amends (and fail, every time) and just barely acknowledge him.

It makes him think if he really doesn’t exist anymore — if they’re right and all there is is black and muddy evil, if he takes everything from everyone and only leaves black and bloody in reverse. If he really isn’t a person anymore, and maybe there’s just the two of them. He fears. ( _Would it be so bad?_ )

—

He thinks; if this wasn’t like that it would be like this:

He would wake up to a warm embrace and a kind face. Someone would touch him and maybe some day love him; someone would drink coffee and eat junk food with him and not care about the rest of the world. He could find courage to be happy, he thinks, someday — he could find courage to be in love the way he almost is already.

He would laugh more and smile, maybe even every day. He would feel warm (his hands wouldn’t tremble). He wouldn’t dream.

It’s not like that at all.

—

So they watch TV and eat PBJs, they almost dare to laugh and they sleep or pretend to sleep in their own rooms. They wake up every morning and make promises: I will get you through this, you are not alone. And they watch more TV and eat together, but they go to bed alone, feeling empty and feeling down, they pretend to sleep and they sleep, and it’s morning again.

And they lie there awake; they think — maybe there is something and maybe it’ll be alright. Suddenly it’s daylight (every morning), even under the ground, because someone or something has to remind them: this is it. ( _There is nothing_.) 

So it goes.

(We _are_ the warriors that built this town from dust.)

**Author's Note:**

> (Imagine Dragons - Warriors)


End file.
